It is difficult to deal with a narcissist when you are a grown, independent, fully functioning adult. The children of narcissists have an especially difficult burden, for they lack the knowledge, power, and resources to deal with their narcissistic parents without becoming their victims. Whether cast into the role of Scapegoat or Golden Child, the Narcissist's Child never truly receives that to which all children are entitled: a parent's unconditional love. Start by reading the 46 memories--it all began there.

Wednesday, June 25, 2014

We aren’t each other’s friends. A parent is
a parent no matter how friendly they may be. Our children are not extensions of
ourselves, they are individuals. Do not ‘friend’ them on Facebook unless you
talk about it first and they say it’s OK and they mean it.

It’s
more than providing clear boundaries, it is about enforcing them and enforcing
them consistently and justly.

In
functional households, there are clear boundaries, boundaries that to not
capriciously fluctuate from day to day, whim to whim. Boundaries may change and
evolve with time and the maturity of the children…like curfew…or they may be
immutable—like treating your parents and others with respect, but they remain
clear and they have consequences for violation that are proportionate to the
breach.

And
boundaries work both ways…children need to be able to set boundaries—within
reason, of course—so that they can have a sense of control of their lives. You
cannot allow them to set any boundary they like, however, because they do not
have the wisdom yet to do so responsibly. That comes with time and trust…and
you must allow them to be trusted until they show themselves to be
untrustworthy. You can help a young child set a boundary with respect to body
touching, with respect to the kind of treatment s/he will accept from others
(no hitting, for example) and teach your child that boundaries apply to others
as well as to himself: if he expect other people not to hit him when they are
frustrated, then he must not hit
others, either.

But with
kids, boundaries must have limitations. Years ago a diamond ring set was stolen
from my home after our teen baby sitter and her boyfriend had been there. I
reported it to the police and gave a sketch of the unique setting. A year later
a police officer showed up at my place of work and said “I think I have
something that belongs to you,” and handed me my ring. Then he told me what
happened: a teen-aged girl (not our baby sitter) came home wearing a ring her
mother recognized as being much too expensive for her daughter to have
legitimately received from her teen-aged boyfriend (our former baby sitter’s
now ex-boyfriend). She took the ring and called the police. The girl, under
pressure from her mother, told her where she got the ring and, using the ring
as evidence to get a search warrant, went to the boy’s house. There they not
only found my other missing ring, they found tens of thousands of dollars of
stolen goods stacked up in his closed, stowed under his bed, and even hooked up
and being used in his room.

When the
police asked his mother how he could have all of this stolen merchandise in his
room and she knew nothing about it, she indignantly told the officer that her
son had a right to privacy and she respected it. She was fortunate that she was
not also charged as an accessory for allowing a massive amount of stolen goods to be stored
in her house.

There was
a news story some years ago about a disabled low-income woman who was evicted
from her apartment in a government-sponsored housing project because her
teenaged son was storing drugs in the apartment and dealing from the premises
without her knowledge. It violated the lease and when he was arrested, her
ignorance was no excuse. She lost her home because she respected a privacy
boundary her child had no right to erect and she had every right to deny him to
have.

So, it is
a fine line we must walk when allowing our children to set boundaries, but they
must be able to erect some…and to
erect more as they grow older…but not to the point that you can be held liable
for a criminal act that occurred because you were more focussed on respect than
guidance and monitoring. Functional families find balance and sometimes that
balance involves violating someone’s “rights” for the well-being of the whole
household. And as the parent, the decision to put family welfare over one
child’s self-imposed boundaries is yours to make, not the child’s, just as in
the larger society, your right to freedom of movement can be overridden by the
authorities if something you are doing with that right somehow jeopardizes the
rest of the community. Respect for boundaries is a good thing in general…but it
can, of necessity be conditional—but the children are not the people to decide
when such a condition exists.

14. Has Each Others’ Backs

Part of resilience – being supportive to
each other no matter what, will allow your kid to call you when he thinks he’s
in trouble, like needing a ride home from a party that’s gotten too wild.

This one is a true tightrope walk because, on
the one hand you want your kid to call you to come get him in a circumstance
like the one above…on the other hand, you don’t want your kid to take this as
tacit consent to go out and get tanked every weekend and you’ll pick up and
there will be no consequences.

We have
to be supportive of the person, but not necessarily of the behaviour—and that
can sometimes be a tough one to negotiate. My solution was to make sure the
kids could get home safely, then supply some onerous chore in the morning (and
I did not let them sleep in on the following morning…up at 7!) that made the
effects of the hangover even worse…like weeding the garden or cleaning up dog
poop or some such job that gets the blood pumping (and throbbing in the
hangovered brain).

My
daughter was searched by a male member of the faculty in front of 150 other
students on the grounds that he thought she had marijuana on her. I came to the
school, over her objections, and had a row with the Vice Principal over it. He
at first defended the search, saying “If we found drugs on her, you would feel
differently!” to which I replied “No, I would not. There was no reason for that
man to physically search her body and to do it in front of 150 of her peers.
You have a Girl’s Vice Principal, a female school nurse, and this happened in
front of the Girl’s Gym, where she could have been taken and privately searched
by a gym teacher.” It was not until I threatened legal action and going to the
school board that he capitulated.

Later in
the year she was searched again but, the VP was quick to inform me that is was
done by the school nurse with the Girl’s VP as a witness. And they found a
couple of roaches in her purse. She was punished both by the school and by me.
Her right to the dignity of her body was supported by me and all but forced on
the school, but when she was found to be guilty of wrong doing, she was
disciplined for it. I had her back when they searched her in such an
inappropriate and humiliating manner, and whether they found drugs or not, I
was not going to allow that kind of indignity to be perpetrated upon her: if
they had found drugs, she would have been disciplined for it but I would still
have pursued changing the policy that allowed fully grown adult men to run
their hands over the bodies of nubile teen girls under the thin guise of
looking for drugs. I supported her as a person being treated without respect
but I did not support the stupidity of bringing drugs to school.

In a
functional household (which mine was definitely not, but we had our moments of
functionality) parents and siblings support the people without necessarily
supporting a behaviour. You can understand that your child is angry or fearful
without going along with his expressions of those feelings. Part of being a
parent is recognizing when your child is not taking the appropriate steps to
deal with a situation and helping…giving them options they did not have before.
Hormones are high in teens and they may be thinking revenge scenarios, and
their prefrontal cortexis not as well developed as yours and
mine, so long-term consequences may not act as a restraining consideration. You have the obligation to notice when
your teen is becoming emotionally unwound and to open the dialog and offer acceptable
ways he might handle his issues. If you suspect something dangerous might be in
the offing, you have the obligation to protect the rest of your family as well
as the community so seeking counselling for your child or even involving the
authorities are choices you might make. Functional families are concerned for
the well-being of their members over their public image so they take those
kinds of steps. Imagine that boy who had my ring and a bedroom stuffed full of
stolen electronics that his mother knew nothing about…just imagine if those had
been firearms?

15. Get Each Other’s Sense of Humor

Functional families laugh a lot. They have
‘inside’ jokes and favorite stories, anecdotes of memories shared that delight
and re-enforces a healthy bond.

I have to take exception to this one
because you can’t always “get” someone else’s sense of humour. My NM used to
tell me I needed to get a sense of humour because I didn’t think laughing at
the expense of someone else was funny. I didn’t “get” pratfall humour because
my first thought went to whether or not the victim was hurt and I didn’t get
cruel teasing for the same reason. My own sense of humour was much drier and more
dependent on wit than on banana peels, and she didn’t get that, either.

I think a sense of humour is rather
individual and can also depend on the age of the person as well. There is a time
when scatological humour is hilarious, but most of us outgrow that by
puberty…are Bevis and Butthead really funny after you are old enough to buy
booze legally? If it is, maybe the legal age is too low…

All that said, I do agree that shared
family stories—with the caveat that the humour is not at the expense of the
feelings of one of the family members—are a good thing and re-enforces a
healthy bond. But when those stories humiliate a family member, too often those
who find it funny feel obliged to further victimize that family member by
telling him or her to “get a sense of humour,” rather than acknowledging that
they are hurting that person yet again and ceasing their behaviour.

16. Eat Meals Together

So hard to do in today’s society but
research does show that communication within a family is enhanced if we take
more meals together, even if it’s in front of the TV.

This is another one of those
agree/disagree issues. It is not hard to schedule family meal time nor is it
hard to enforce it. In a functional family, people care about their fellow
family members and they respect them, and that includes respecting the efforts
of the family member who had taken time to prepare a meal for them all. It may
be the only time in a day that the whole family has the opportunity to be
together.

Children in a household are not miniature
adults who can decide what to do with their time. They can have blocks of free
time granted to them by their parents, but it is up to the parents to see to it
that a schedule, however informal, is established so that kids have rules…kids need rules for security. One of those
rules can be dinner time. You set a time and everyone is expected to be there.
There are consequences for not being there; there are consequences for being
late; there are consequences for filling up with junk food at a friend’s house
and having no appetite for dinner. And the first consequence is the shortening
of the free time period so that if dinner is served at 7, the offending child
must be home by 6, or something like that. You
are the adult, you set the rules. No
eating dinner at a friend’s house without prior permission, no making plans
that occur during dinner time without prior permission, and no eating in front
of the TV except on very rare occasions (and if you have a way to record it,
not even then).

Dinner time is family time and it should be
sacrosanct. Families bond during this time, it is your opportunity to observe
your family and see how they are doing. Does your teen daughter seem depressed?
Is your preteen son preoccupied with something? Is your toddler whiney? Does
your husband seem distant and detached? Observe…discuss in private…and make the
kids help with clean up so that they understand that a family meal is, in all
ways, a family event.

17. Follow The Golden Rule

It’s golden for a reason. “Treat each other
as we wish to be treated in turn.” It was true way back when and it’s still
true now.

mmmm…not necessarily. In a fully
functional family, yes. In a family with dysfunctional people at the head…not
so much.

They way we, the children of Narcissists,
want to be treated is not necessarily healthy. If we grew up in a household
that caused us to be hypervigilant and hypersensitive, then what we want is to
not have the hypervigilance and hypersensitivity triggered…which others may
perceive as having to walk on eggshells. And, if we give that same treatment to our
kids, we may tiptoe tentatively around issues and situations when, if fact,
such issues need to addressed head on.

The bottom line is, they are not you. The
way you wish to be treated may not be at all they way they need or wish to be treated. You and your feelings and your
desires are not the benchmark for your significant other, your kids, or anyone
else on the planet: they are yours and yours alone. You are not a universal
standard from which to measure the emotional needs of those around you. No
matter what level of recovery you have achieved, you were still damaged in your
early years and some of your emotional needs come from that damage. Your needs
cannot even be used as a standard for measuring the needs of other damaged
people, as we are all unique and respond to our tribulations and traumas in our
own unique ways.

Better, I think is to adopt a policy of
treating everyone with respect and expect that in return…and if you don’t get
it, remember that is not a reflection on you,
it is a reflection on the person who treats you disrespectfully. If that person
is your child, then you have some work to do, some teaching and guidance. If
that person is not your child, then you might want to reconsider keeping that
person in your life.

But to treat everyone the way you want to
be treated seems to be a little narcissistically centred, as if everybody on
the planet wants to be treated the same way you do…and there are just too many
of us for that to be true.

And I will add my own:

18.
Trust and trustworthiness

It is important to be able to trust those
in your family and for them to be able to trust you.

You create trust by following through on
your promises, but being consistent and even predictable. That may sound awful,
but if you have children, they need to be able to predict you to feel secure.
If you are all smiles and praise over a “B” on a math paper this week, but
thunderously displeased over a “B” paper next week, you are going to confuse
your child and he is not going to know what to do to please you. Children feel
secure if they feel their parents are happy with them.

Be very wary of making promises and when
you make them, let nothing short of sudden death make you break them. I learned
long ago to tell my children something less committal: “I’ll see what I can
do,” “I will try,” “It’s not in the budget for this month but let me see what I
can work out down the line”… They knew this could end up becoming a “yes” or a
“no,” but they didn’t get their hearts set on something that would ultimately
be a disappointment.

I rarely made promises then, and I rarely
make promises now. But when I do make them, you can take them to the bank.
People who know me know that if I promise something, it will happen…they can
trust.

Was I always so trustworthy? Of course not.
I didn’t understand the value of it. I didn’t trust anybody anyway…promises
seemed just empty words to me. But time has brought me to the realization that
if I am going to expect others to be worthy of my trust, I have to be worthy of
theirs as well. I am always forgiving of unforeseeable circumstances, but many
others are not, so I promise very infrequently and only when I know that I can
deliver. Everything else gets either turned down or with a commitment to see
what I can do, but no promises of the outcome.

People in functional families can trust
each other because they come through for each other. Sophistry such as I
employ…promising only when I know beyond a shadow of a doubt that I can deliver
and “I’ll see what I can do” for everything else is not really necessary
because functional people in functional families understand and forgive those
unforeseeable circumstances. People in functional families are not blindsided
by the unexpected. To those of us raised with high drama and low blows,
functional families may actually feel boring because they are pretty
predictable. Your parents will still love you if you are unmarried and
pregnant, gay or transgender, get an abortion, marry a person of a different
faith or colour, commit a crime. They may not approve of the actions you
undertake, but you know in the depths of your heart, that they will not stop
loving you, no matter what acts you have committed. You trust that love…and
they trust yours.

And that is what we, the adult children of
narcissist parents, were most deprived of…the ability to trust. Because when
you cannot trust your parents, when your entire life you live in fear of a
rejection even deeper than that you endure as a scapegoat, trust simply does
not exist. And that is the furthest from “normal” that you can get.

Tuesday, June 24, 2014

Teasing can be OK as long as the teased is
in on the joke. Same with sarcasm. A functional family won’t use either as a
poorly masked put down.

Nobody likes to be the butt of a joke.
And nobody likes being the perpetual fall guy. In dysfunctional families, it is
common for people to poke fun at the Scapegoat and if the Scapegoat expresses
hurt by crying, complaining or even walking away, then the offense is often
compounded by claims that the Scapegoat “can’t take a joke” or has no sense of
humour.

Make no mistake, this kind of behaviour is
passive aggressive. It is thinly-veiled hostility. It is not funny and those
who find amusement at the expense of another person’s feelings are
demonstrating insensitivity and even sadism.

But even people who grow up in functional
families may engage in this kind of so-called humour because today,
unfortunately, to be viewed by your peers as clever and witty, you may have to
engage in such behaviour, either as the so-called wit or as part of the
laughing entourage. Popular culture endorses this behaviour with insulting,
sharp-tongued television hosts on game and competition shows, reality TV divas
indulging in verbal cat-fights, even movies in which the “winner” is the person
with the sharpest tongue and most devastating wit.

Wit is a good thing, as is cleverness, but
when it is at the expense of the feelings and dignity of another, the witty one
is nothing more than a glib bully. In functional households children grow up
learning the value of respect, not only for themselves, but for others as well.
If they engage in this kind of socially-sanctioned bullying, calling it to
their attention will make them feel guilty and even ashamed of themselves. In
functional households, parents do not use sarcasm and verbal bullying on their
children and do not allow their children to do it to each other. Teasing, when
it happens, is affectionate and the teased is part of the joke…he is not hurt
by the teasing but views it as one of the ways his family shows affection. And
if he expresses hurt, the family not only stops, it apologizes and tries to
make amends.

It is through this respect for the child’s
feelings that the child grows up to be an adult who can take a joke…but doesn’t
mistake veiled hostility for humour.

9. Allows People to Change and Grow

It used to be people in the family were
labeled the smart one or the pretty one, the funny one or the shy one. While
that’s not done so overtly any more, labeling is still something to watch. A
functional family lets people define themselves. Individual differences are
appreciated even celebrated. It also lets the kids become independent when it’s
appropriate and come back to the safety of the family when they need nurturing.

The adults in the family need to be allowed
to grow as well. A mother may want to get a graduate degree, or a father may
decide to retire early and start something new. These changes merit discussion
on how they will effect everyone in the family, adjustment, perhaps
negotiation, but again, if done with respect every one can be satisfied.

This is actually a very important aspect
of functional families. Think, if you will, of a family of birds. The role of
the parent is to provide the young with a home and food and to teach the young
one the necessary skills to fly the nest and not only survive, but be able to
perpetuate the species by doing the same for its own nestlings. If you were to
come across a dove that refuses to teach its little ones to fly, that thwarts
their every effort to gain independence, or that keeps the young ones tied to
it in a way that does not facilitate their own independence and autonomy,
wouldn’t you think there was something really wrong there?

The role of human parents is little
different, although more complex due to the length of time the young ones are
under their care and the demands and expectations of the society. But
ultimately, the role of the human parents is much the same: shelter and nurture
the little ones and facilitate their learning the skills and lessons necessary
to survive in the society. These lessons range from learning to walk and talk
to learning to drive and shop, cook, and take care of themselves. Inherent in
the latter years is increased freedom and autonomy so that by the time the
young one is launched, he has the basic skills and some experience that will
help him survive…even thrive…independently. Unfortunately, dysfunctional
families often thwart this drive towards independence because the dysfunctional
parents may wish to maintain the status quo. Even if the young leave the
physical presence of the family, the dysfunctional parents wish to keep the
ties the bind intact so that their emotional needs are met, even if it is at
the expense of their children.

I have heard more than one daughter of a
narcissistic mother echo my own complaint that NM refused to acknowledge our
puberty by refusing permission for us to engage is the normal grooming rituals
of developing teen girls. No bras or other feminine underthings, permission
denied to tweeze unruly brows, shave legs and underarms, or begin using
cosmetics or hair styling products. We were kept in childish clothing long past
the time it was appropriate, and we were limited in our permission to associate
with our peers and explore our surroundings in the same way we were limited at
age 10. At age 14, I was wearing clothes from children’s department at Sears
with the seams let out and the hems let down, rather than be allowed to choose
my own clothes from a more adult section.

But it goes further than that. By refusing
to teach a child the skills s/he will need for survival in the real world, the
narcissist binds the child to her by necessity. If it is a malignant
narcissist, the withholding of life skills training may be part of an ultimate
revenge: if the narcissist is insulted by the child’s natural drive towards
autonomy and independence, the narcissist may intentionally withhold training
and even forbid the child from learning certain skills necessary for
independence, not to bind the child to her, but to “teach her a lesson” about
how important the narcissist is to the child’s survival. My own mother was a
master at this: I was not allowed to cook, to use the washing machine, sewing
machine or learn how to grocery shop, pay bills, balance a check book. I was
told to do certain grunt-labour jobs that to relieve her of the drudgery, but
never taught how to sort laundry, choose a good steak, determine if an avocado
was ripe or not. I was even forbidden to attend junior college after high
school, despite the fact that I graduated only 3 months after my 17th
birthday and had nearly a year to fill before I turned 18. No, to let me learn
any more might make me competent to manage my own affairs and the plan was for
me to turn 18 and be shoved out the door with a couple of suitcases, no money,
no job, and no life skills. This was to be my payback for daring to not need
her, to be preparing to move beyond her control.

A functional family wants their children to
succeed as independent adults and give the kids increasing responsibility and
autonomy as they grow older and demonstrate their ability to handle it. My own
kids had to learn to do laundry, get the groceries without me there to pick out
the meat and produce, and even to fix their own food. They may not have liked
learning it, but they all went out on their own with the knowledge to make it
independently. Whether or not they used it, of course, was up to them.

In a functional family, the parents
encourage growth and autonomy and the eventual launching into independence.
Those who had such parents may find it difficult to even fathom what it was
like with our families. If you grew up having privileges taken away because of
something you did wrong, when a friend tells you she spend most of her
adolescence shut in her room, it is natural to wonder what the friend did wrong
to get restricted to that degree. Why? Because capricious parents who put their
own desires ahead of the developmental needs of their children are simply
outside their frame of reference.

10. Parents Work as a Co-Parenting Team strongly believe that a functional family is
one where the adults are at the center of the family, in charge and pulling
together in the same direction. In a functional family parents, divorced or
married, take responsibility. Kids need the assurance that a firm hand (not too
tight and not too loose) is at the tiller, even if they may not thank you for
it.

This
can be a tough one for some people to grasp, the idea that a home with two
parents in it is not necessarily healthier or more functional than a home with
only one parent or a blended family. It comes down to the functionality of the
people who are heading up the household.

Some
people get smart fairly early in a relationship with a dysfunctional person and
bail out before they become stuck in victimhood. Unfortunately, sometimes there
are kids involved, when that happens, the children may be stuck in a
dysfunctional family even if they are living with the more functional parent.
If one of your parents was dysfunctional and the other is not, your home may
become a battleground as one parent fights for what is best for the children
against the other parent who is fighting (or sneaking around) for what she or
he wants. The more functional parent often is left on the horns of a dilemma:
keep objecting and thereby keep the conflict alive; opt for peace but let the
dysfunctional parent exploit the child; get out and continue the fight through
court. There is no easy answer for the functional parent married to a
dysfunctional one.

In a
functional family, both parents put the well-being of the parents ahead of
their own desires and even needs. If they differ on what constitutes what is
best for the child, they don’t degenerate into screaming or tantrums, threats,
or sabotaging the other parent. They will work together for the well-being of
the children, putting aside their personal animosities and desires and working
toward a common goal. One parent will reinforce the other, even if they
personally disagree, and take up the disagreement with the other parent
privately. Functional parents say things like “Did you ask your mother? What
did she say? Well, let me talk to her for a minute before I make up my mind…”
so that they don’t inadvertently undermine the other parent.

In a
functional household, parents are less concerned with themselves, less
concerned with trying to be your buddy, less concerned with displeasing their
kids, and most concerned with doing the right thing, even if it disadvantages
them or upsets the kids. Children, to survive in the real world when they enter
it as adults, need to know how to deal with disappointment and that they don’t
always get what they want. Parents who ease their own wounded souls by never
saying “no” to their kids or who satisfy their need for control through
regimenting their children are not functional and do their kids no favours.
Functional parents may deny their kids things they want but never what they
need: dysfunctional parents often cannot tell the difference.

11. Courtesy at Home First

An ounce of a well-placed ‘please’ or
‘thank you’, ‘you’re welcome’ or ‘I’m sorry’ is worth a pound of explanations,
defensive arguments and misunderstandings.

This, again, is about respect (are you
noticing a trend here?). Functional people will step out of themselves, even if
just for a moment, to acknowledge another. My father used to tell me “Courtesy
is contagious…infect somebody.”

I think I would have dropped over in a dead
faint if my mother had ever said “please” or “thank you” to me…and on one
occasion, when I had mustered up the courage to ask if she was going to
apologize to me for punishing me for something she later learned my brother had
done, she laughed and told me “Consider that punishment for something you did
do and I never found out about.” I was crushed. I felt this was just one more
example that she didn’t love me, didn’t care about my feelings. In functional
families, members do care about the
feelings of the other members, and they respect them.

People who are treated with respect and
courtesy by family members while they are growing up learn that behaviour. If
they observed the role models in the household treating the family members with
courtesy and respect…including the children…then this is what they will tend to
learn. And when you grow up with the experience of being treated with respect
and courtesy, this is what you expect to get from others…and when people don’t
behave that way, you don’t doubt yourself, you know there is something wrong
with them.

Growing up with the kind of self-worth that
comes from being treated with respect all of your life makes you less
emotionally vulnerable, more confident. You have a greater tendency to treat
yourself with respect, as well. Children who grow up in a household where their
feelings and rights were disrespected and courtesy was a one-way street (from
child to parent but not from parent to child) may develop hypervigilance or
hypersensitivity, and even anxiety; children from a functional household in
which their feelings and rights were respected will have a more positive sense
of themselves and the world around them.

12. Encourages Siblings to Work Together

Brothers and sisters have a unique
relationship and it’s a dead shame when it is not nourished. Functional parents
encourage siblings to play, work and problem solve together, enhancing
inter-sib communication, instead of interfering with their arguments. That way
siblings feel empowered and their bond is closer when they find a solution by
themselves.

When
parents compare one child to others or pit children against each other, when
they demonstrate favouritism or don’t explain apparent favouritism, they are
creating a dysfunctional environment.

When my
sons were 17 and 10, we went to Hawaii
for a week. After breakfast each morning the older boy was told what our plans
were for the day and given his choice of coming along or spending the day on
his own. If he chose the latter, he was given $10 for pocket money (enough to
buy lunch and rent a surfboard) and told to meet us back at the room at a
certain time so he could clean up and go to dinner with the family.

The
younger boy was outraged because he was not given the same choices as his
brother. He characterized it as “unfair” that we wouldn’t give him $10 and let
him spend the day running around Waikiki
without supervision. And although we tried to explain to him that, when he
turns 17, he will have the freedom to go and do on his own for the whole day,
his anger did not abate. I finally told him that the subject was not open to
debate, he was 10 and he was not going to get the same privileges as his 17
year old brother until he, too was 17.

Without
the explanation, both of my sons could have taken the decision as favouritism
shown to the older boy…with the explanation, it became clear that this was not
a case of favouritism but one of what was appropriate for a certain age and
responsibility level. Dysfunctional parents, however, will not see any reason
to make such an explanation, just simply cite their own authority and demand
that their authority not be questioned.

My mother
showed favouritism towards my younger brother so blatant that even family
members who did not spend much time with us both saw it and remarked on it. She
pitted us against each other and made immaterial comparisons, then doled out
privileges or treats based on the results of those comparisons. For example, I
was two years older and three grades ahead of my brother. When I was struggling
with fifth grade math and he was sailing through second grade math, my mother
conveniently forgot that my math scores in second grade were stellar…instead,
she accused me of laziness, stupidity, daydreaming and not applying myself as
the reasons my math grades were poor (not that I’d never learned my
multiplication tables because she had me skipped a grade mid-year and I missed
that in school) and he was rewarded for his grades and I was punished for mine.
I was also told that he was smarter than I was because his grades were better,
even though we weren’t studying the same things at the same levels.

In any
comparison with my brother, I always came up short. Not only did this cause me
to resent him, it caused him to think he was superior to me. This led to a
whole other kind of conflict between us. The last time I saw him was at my
grandmother’s funeral, 20 years ago. He was arrogant and condescending to
virtually everyone in the family. It was not until years later, when I began to
study narcissism, that I began to understand what kind of person he had become.
It stuck out all over him, but I didn’t know what I was seeing at that time.
But, thanks to my mother’s failure to nurture a bond between us and her delight
at setting at each other as competitors or judging us as if we had been in a
competition, there has never been any love lost between us.

This is
what it means to have a dysfunction relationship with your siblings that was
created and fostered by a dysfunctional parent. In a functional family,
however, the kind of posturing my brother would do…encouraged by our
mother…would result in an admonition to be nice to the sibling, to be a good
sport, to have a care for the other child’s feelings. Pride in accomplishments
of the siblings would be encouraged from the standpoint that everyone is a part
of the whole…the family…and that the family sticks together and cares for each
other. Bonding between siblings and between parents and children is a given,
trust and love and respect taken for granted because it is how these families
work. Of course there will be conflict and strife, but they are not taken as
blood feuds or excuses for extended animosity. In a functional family, members
of the family love and respect and support each other, even when they disagree.

Monday, June 23, 2014

People who grow up in dysfunctional homes
often long for a normal family, a normal home, a normal life. But just what is
meant by “normal”?

The Oxford English Dictionary defines normal as “Conforming to a standard; usual, typical, or
expected.” Right there, we run into the first problem because what is “usual,
typical or expected” most definitely varies from one person to the next. Even
“conforming to a standard” is problematic because there is no objective
standard for a functional family and even dysfunctional families can conform to
a standard for dysfunctionality. The truth is, there is no such thing as a
“normal” family, home or life.

So, are we pining
over, yearning for something that exists only in our own imaginations? To a
degree, yes. There really is no such thing as a “normal” family or even a
“normal” parent. We create in our minds what we each define as “normal,” and
your definition is, of necessity, different from mine. Our personal definitions
of being normal, having normal family members or a normal family life are based
on both our observations of others (people who we perceive as “normal”) and on
our own needs and wants. Your version of normal may include an effusively loving
stay-at-home-mom who bakes cookies and listens, rapt, while you described your
school day whereas my definition of normal could include a working mom, but one
who didn’t hit or scream and who allows me to close my bedroom door. A better
term for what we want is “ideal” and that right there creates another set of
problems: ideals are goals to shoot for, but not always realistically
achievable.

What might be a better
examination is the difference between functional and dysfunctional family
interactions, recognizing that even this is an ideal, but at least some of it
is achievable. Rare is the family that achieves all of the benchmarks of a
fully functional family, and even families that achieve some of them…well,
sometimes those qualities can be faked. It’s not an easy thing to nail down.

Then there is the question: why do we even
want to know what is normal? Why chase after it, want it, hunger for it? If
you’ve never had a pony you can’t miss having one, so if you’ve never had a
functional family, can you miss it? And knowing that we cannot change anyone
but ourselves, are we not creating for ourselves a whole new world of pain by
focussing on and wishing for something we not only have been denied, but
something we can never have, a functional FOO?

I think the value in knowing what an ideal
functional family looks like is that most of us go on to have
families…children…of our own. It is doubly difficult to create something if you
have no idea what it should look or feel like. People who grow up in reasonably
functional families know…they may even subconsciously recognize each other,
much as dysfunctional people can subconsciously recognize and be drawn to
people with similar or complementing dysfunctions. If we have any hope of
breaking the dysfunctional cycle that we grew up in, the first thing we have to
do is know what functional looks like…not our personalized, idealized version
of functional but an achievable, real-world kind of functionality…so that we
can create something approximating it for our kids.

Clinical psychologist Dr. Elvira G. Aletta
wrote an article on just what qualities are present in functional families. What Makes aFamily Functional vs Dysfunctional?
outlines 17 points that are common to functional families. Dr. Aletta’s points
are presented below and my comments are, as usual, shown in violet.

1. R-E-S-P-E-C-T

Respect is the Holy Grail of functional
families. All people in the family, brothers to sisters, mothers to fathers,
parents to kids must be respectful as consistently as possible. Being
considerate of each other is the tie that binds, even more than love. I think
too much emphasis is put on love in general. I’ve heard of many atrocities done
within families in the name of love but never in the name of respect. Just
about all the things on the list come out of respect first.

Respect is paramount in all functional
relationships. The idea that people have to earn respect is logically absurd and emotionally destructive. We are owed respect from
everyone until we do something to earn disrespect and we owe respect to
everyone until that person earns our disrespect. It is very simple to respect
another person if don’t confuse respect with approval or love or even liking.
You don’t have to like a person or even approve of what he does or says or is
in order to respect him. Respect does not mean putting a person on a pedestal,
looking up to him, or even admiring him. Respect is simply caring about others,
about their feelings and their rights, regardless of whether you like or admire
or approve of them or not. And this includes our kids.

As ACoNs, every one of us can look back and
find examples of disrespect from our families. Caring about the feelings of
others is not the same as being controlled by those feelings, either. When I
was very young I came home from school and found most of my toys missing.
Thinking our house had been robbed, I ran to my mother only to learn that the
Goodwill truck was in our neighbourhood that day and she “cleaned” my closet. I
remember feeling shocked that she would do that. I was well aware that children
were obligated to follow the dictates of their parents and if she had told me
earlier that she would be giving away my old toys, I would have accepted her
dictates…but to come home and find it a fait
accompli was shocking…it was my
stuff! In retrospect I can see that I was feeling disrespected, that she had
usurped what little autonomy I had, by taking and giving away that which I
believed to be mine. It reinforced my feeling that she was not to be trusted,
and that it wasn’t a good idea for me to get attached to anything because it could
be gone in a heartbeat. Her lack of respect for my feelings…indeed, her failure
to acknowledge that my feelings were valid and deserved respect…characterized
and defined our relationship.

If your relationships with your FOO, your
partner, your kids, lack reciprocal respect, you are already in dysfunctional
territory. You cannot have a functional relationship or home without it.

2. An Emotionally Safe Environment

All members of the family can state their
opinions, thoughts, wants, dreams, desires and feelings without fear of being
slammed, shamed, belittled or dismissed.

This is less about permission to express
emotions but more about feeling free to express yourself without fear of being
emotionally injured as a result. I can remember telling my mother I wanted to
take French in the 9th grade and being called “pretentious” for it.
If I told anyone about getting an A on a test or received an academic award, I
was “showing off.” When I said I wanted to go to college, I was simply laughed
at. When I said I wanted to go live with my father, she took it as a personal
affront. She was fond of saying “There are three ways to do anything: the right
way, the wrong way, and my way…and my way is the only way that counts.”
This translated into every aspect of life: I could not like something she
didn’t, and if I didn’t like something she did (like liver), it was a personal
affront. It was not safe to like, feel, want or even need anything she did not
also like, feel, want or need. And the punishment for diverging from the “party
line” was emotional excoriation.

In a functional household, people are
allowed to hold and express their own opinions, feelings, wants, and beliefs
without fear of being punished for them. They can speak out and if their
opinions differ from others in the household, they are not subjected to ad hominem attack, even if those beliefs
and opinions come under rigorous discussion. In a dysfunctional household, any
deviation from the approved or expected leaves you open to personal attack…and
even agreeing may result in the same if you can’t parrot the party line as to why you believe as you profess. Members
of functional households are not controlled or punished with fear.

3. A Resilient Foundation

When relationships between and amongst
people in a family are healthy they can withstand stress, even trauma, and, if
not bounce back, at least recover. Resilience starts with encouraging sound
health, eating and sleeping well, and physical activity.

Resilience
implies flexibility and strength; its opposite is rigidity and inflexibility.
It shouldn’t come as a surprise that functional households, while possessing
structure and boundaries, also are resilient, flexing to accommodate new
situations and circumstances, and in dysfunctional households, there are rigid
roles and no flexibility to accommodate the members of the household.

Children
learn more by observation that by what they hear. What you, as a parent,
demonstrate to them, is what they absorb. So, if the parent as a rigid
personality, is stubborn and intransigent, won’t make exceptions when they are
warranted or, conversely, is so chaotic that no kind of grounding is provided,
it is difficult for children to learn to roll with the normal punches of life.
If your partner leaves and you become mired in grief or rage or react with a
sudden desperate siege of all of the local single’s joints, you aren’t teaching
your kids resilience, you aren’t demonstrating for them that first you grieve,
then you pick yourself up and resume life.

Resilience
is learned and you can learn it young, through a family that practices
emotionally healthy responses to stressors, or you can spend a lot of money and
time in therapy as an adult to learn it. Functional families give it to their
kids for free.

4. Privacy

Privacy of space, of body and of thought.
Knock and ask permission to enter before going through a closed door. All
family members are sensitive regarding personal space and aren’t insulted if
someone needs a wide berth.

This has to do with boundaries. In the
dysfunctional household, boundaries are set by the people who are in control of
the household and, as a rule, only they are allowed to have boundaries. Privacy
is a boundary that the dysfunctional parent finds threatening: they only feel
safe if they can know what you are doing at any time they feel they need to
know. It comes from fear and distrust: control makes them feel safe and they
fear that if you have privacy you might be doing something forbidden…and the
fact that you might do something forbidden is dangerous to their control.

In a dysfunctional household, people do get insulted if someone needs a wide
berth or personal space. You might be doing something that goes against the
controller’s wishes or, worse, you might be doing something that threatens his
control. If you are perceived as “hiding something,” you are suspect. You are expected to be an open book but,
at the same time, you are expected to respect the privacy of the household
controllers.

Functional households allow children to set
their own age-appropriate boundaries (parents must still have some idea of what
their minor children are doing in order to keep them safe…an Australian mother
recently discovered her toddler had brought a bunch of eggs that he found
outside into the house and stashed them in his closet—turns out they were eggs
of the most venomous snakes in the world and they hatched inside the closet!
Imagine if she didn’t think she had the right to go into his wardrobe because
of privacy issues and therefore didn’t find the snakes before her child was
bitten!). In dysfunctional households, the ability to set boundaries is
reserved to the people in control. Your privacy is at their whim, not your
right.

It all boils down to respect and
dysfunctional households, that is in very short supply.

5. Accountability

Being accountable is not the same as
planting a homing device on your kid or abusing the cell phone to track her
whereabouts 24/7. That’s not much better than stalking. No, being accountable
is (again with the respect thing) respectfully and reasonably informing people
in the family where you are and what you are doing so they can grow trust and
not worry.

This can be a touchy one because for
safety’s sake, parents need to know where their children are, and the younger
the child, the more important it is for the parent to know. In a functional
home, however, children are granted more and more freedom and autonomy as they
mature and demonstrate that they can make good decisions (or have learned from
their bad ones) and be trusted.

Dysfunctional households tend to go to one
extreme or the other: either the kids are simply turned loose to fend for
themselves and allowed to run wild, or they are rigidly controlled and given no
autonomy that does not benefit the controlling parents. There may be even be a
situation where some children are allowed to run wild while others are rigidly
controlled. Either way, the children do not come up in a household in which
they gradually learn responsibility and are given guidance such as how to learn
from a mistake.

6. An Apology

It’s sad when people hold out for an
apology on a point of pride, never acknowledging their part in a dispute. How
many times have you heard of rifts in families that last for years because
someone feels they are ‘owed an apology’?

A functional family will have conflict.
It’s very cool when we can have an argument and get to the other side of it
still friendly and satisfied with the outcome. But let’s face it, that’s not
always the case. Sometimes we say things that we regret. If we can feel and
show remorse for our part, quickly apologize, ask for and receive forgiveness,
no harm is done. You may even become closer for it.

I have to take some exception to this. While it does, on the surface, seem a
bit absurd to remain estranged for an extended period of time while ostensible
awaiting an apology, this might also be the tip of a huge narcissistic iceberg.

Many of us go No Contact with narcissistic
family members for our own well-being and sometimes that decision is based on
an event in which someone ends up feeling s/he is owed an apology. Most of us
shy away from painful introspection…we don’t want to dig into our past pain and
re-experience it and come away with the devastating realization that our parents
are narcissists who have never loved anybody but themselves. Subconsciously, if
we are not emotionally ready to accept and deal with it, we protect ourselves
from that kind of shattering insight with less devastating “reasons” that still
allow us to take the steps that shield us from the damaging people in our
lives.

Whether or not breaking contact with a family member is a dysfunctional thing
depends entirely on that family member and the relationship with him/her. If it
is a narcissist who constantly gas lights you, exploits you, and generally runs
you down and the schism occurred when you stood up to the abuse, one or both of
you may expect and apology from the other and remain estranged while awaiting
it…and in such a circumstance, I don’t think that is a bad thing!

7. Allow Reasonable Expression of
Emotions

When I was growing up I wasn’t allowed to
be angry at my parents and my father would walk out on me if I cried. I was
determined to not do that to my kids. It hasn’t been easy. The main thing for
me was to teach them to state their anger in a managed manner and to teach
myself not to fly off the handle when they did. I had to learn that their
telling me they weren’t happy with something I did or said could be done with
respect. And, very importantly, vice versa.

The key word in this point is
“reasonable.” My kids were allowed to express their feelings but they weren’t
allowed to be abusive in the process: they were expected to respect the
feelings of others even while expressing their own. That meant that tantrums
that disrupted the peace of the rest of the family was not allowed…a child
having a tantrum was sent (or taken) to his room until the tantrum was over and
s/he could rejoin the rest of us and state his/her frustration in a manner that
we could all deal with. That meant that being angry was ok, but name-calling,
insults, throwing or breaking things, screaming and hitting were not.

Reasonable expressions of emotion, both
demonstrated by the parents and allowed to the children, do not include abuse.
They respect the rights and feelings of another, which can be a fine line to
walk when your child wants something desperately and the parent must say
“no.”Sometimes we have to hurt our
children (or do things they perceive as hurtful) in order to protect them. We
are not their buddies, after all, we are their teachers, mentors, guides and
protectors. But in fulfilling that role, we cannot squelch their expressions of
emotions, we must help them learn the appropriate, acceptable means of expressing
them and in functional families that is done both by example and by
instruction.

Thursday, June 19, 2014

If you’ve got an N parent, you’ve probably
got Flying Monkeys in your life. What are flying monkeys? To paraphrase the Glossary,
flying monkeys are people who do the N’s bidding, whether to inflict
additional torment or to simply spy on the victim or spread gossip.

Flying monkeys are people who take your
NM’s part in the family drama and act on her behalf. They may be obvious or
they may be so subtle that you react with utter shock when you discover their
betrayal. But make no mistake: flying monkeys never truly have your best interests at heart because if they did,
they would refuse to play secret agent for the narcissist.

In my experience, flying monkeys fall into
two basic categories: willing, complicit partners and well-meaning dupes. The
willing, complicit partners also fall into two categories: those who believe
that you just need to forgive and forget and they are going to help you do just
that, and those who just don’t like you and are therefore quite happy to spy on
you for your NM, and to do her bidding. The dupes also break down into two
categories: those who are fooled by her drama into helping her violate your
boundaries and those who believe all of the lies and half-truths that NM and
her minions have spread about you and who want you to see the error of your
ways.

The complicit partners have their own
agenda that they are going to satisfy through helping your N while the dupes
are basically people who are fooled by your NM into helping her. I am not going
to let the dupes off the hook, though…by stepping in as one of the N’s flying
monkeys they are making one critical…and very disrespectful…error: they don’t
bother to come to you and ask you for your side of the story. Any rational,
truly well-meaning person wants to know both sides of an issue before they
agree to assist one side against the other and they have a thirst for truth. Anyone
who sides with your narcissist against you without having contacted you first,
anyone who takes it upon himself to violate your boundaries after you have
clearly stated them, is not your friend, no matter what s/he tries to get you
to believe. You are not obligated to tell another person…not even a close
member of your family…why you do not wish to communicate with another person.
If it is not enough that you don’t want to, if the person refuses to respect
your boundaries unless she agrees with your reasoning, then this is a person
you cannot trust to have your back…and a person who is a potential flying
monkey.

So, just what do flying monkeys do?
Basically two things: act as a source of information to the NM and act against
you on the NM’s behalf. Maybe your sister will call you and ask seemingly
innocuous questions, draw you out, even sympathize and commiserate with you
about your mother’s behaviours. But when you hang up the phone, Mum is the
first person she calls and unloads everything she heard. It may go further than
that…the flying monkey may send you emails or texts, may phone you, and say
terrible things. If the flying monkey is also an N…and I believe many are,
based on the basic premise that to be a flying monkey, one must be willing to
disrespect the person targeted…then the flying monkey may go further: she may
attempt to seduce the scapegoat’s husband or boyfriend, tell lies (or highly
embroidered and biased versions of the truth) to the scapegoat’s children, even
tell unflattering stories to the scapegoat’s coworkers or employer. The flying
monkey may resort to outright threats: “if you don’t be nice to your mother, I
will tell everyone you tried to seduce my ex-husband when we were still
married” (when you did nothing of the sort). Or the flying monkey may try
persuasion and guilt-tripping, telling you your mother loves you and how much
you have hurt her with your refusal to speak to her…and anything else that may
get the NM what she wants.

And what does your NM want? Well, whether
or not you are LC, NC, or in full contact with your NM, what your NM wants is
control of you, and for you to play your role in the family drama without any
thought of backing out. The flying monkey is around to gather intelligence to
help the NM further her agenda. When I was the young mother of two, I had not
seen or heard from my brother, the Golden Child, for several years…he had been
overseas with the military and when he came back, he didn’t tell me. One day a
man showed up at my front door, a man on a blue Kawasaki motorcycle, and when I opened the
door, it was my brother. Since this was before my knowing anything about
narcissism and dysfunctional family structures, I was delighted to see him and
invited him in. In retrospect, it should have been obvious to me that he was
snooping and asking a lot of personal questions, but being a person who was
largely invisible during my childhood, I was delighted he was finally taking an
interest in me. It never occurred to me that he was snooping on my NM’s behalf
because I couldn’t imagine what would motivate that. My naïveté was to come
back to haunt me, as this turned out to be NM’s opening salvo in taking my
children away from me and giving them to her childless younger brother to
adopt.

The court was full of flying monkeys as
witnesses: an uncle, NM’s older brother who lived in another state and hadn’t
seen me in seven years (before my children were even born), testified that mine
was an unfit home, that he had seen it with his own eyes. A probation officer,
who had never even been to my house but who had interviewed my brother, uncle,
and mother in addition to interviewing me, described a house that I had never
seen before, let alone lived in with my children. I cannot speak to the motives
of the lying civil servant, but my uncle and brother’s motives were clear: they
wanted my mother to have custody of my children. Why? Because she had convinced
them I was a bad person, a bad influence, a bad mother. Did they know her real
plan was to kidnap my kids and take them across country to give to her younger
brother to adopt? I really don’t know, but I do know that is what happened and
that she managed to rope my entire FOO into being flying monkeys for her
because every time I called or wrote one of them and asked about the
whereabouts and well-being of my children I was either stone-walled or yelled
at. That
is what flying monkeys can do.

I doubt the majority of flying monkeys are
as pernicious as mine were, but it isn’t the big gush of water that wears a
hole in rock, it is the steady, unrelenting drip-drip-drip of small drops over
an extended period of time that wears down even granite. The small predations
into your life, the constant awareness that you cannot know who to trust, the
endless violations of your boundaries, the ceaseless little moments of
disrespect…they all count, they all add up to the chipping away of your
confidence, your self-esteem, your peace.

I know of a man who lives half the
continent away from his parents and brother. A kind and compassionate man, when
he decided to go NC, he tried to do it gently so as not to upset his mother,
and told her that he was going to be out of contact for a while, that he needed
some space from his family. His mother agreed, in her sweet way but, within
weeks, she was back to sending him emails and texts, often closing them with
something like “oops! I know I wasn’t supposed to contact you, but I thought
you would want/needed to know this…” Within a month, his NM had violated his No
Contact boundaries as if they didn’t exist.

When he stuck to his guns and didn’t
respond to her violations she changed tactics and began sending in the flying
monkeys. Out of the blue, a cousin he hadn’t heard from in years called him to
“catch up.” Cousin asked a litany of nosy questions about his life, his plans,
his work, his projects, and even mentioned the mother back home who was hoping
everything was OK with him. Sneakily, while professing not to want to know what
was wrong, the cousin made it clear that he thought the lack of contact between
mother and son, initiated by the son, was wrong and that it made the mother so
terribly sad. It was a combination flying monkey attack and hoovering session,
all in one!

You can be pretty sure that when you
interrupt communication with your N and within a month or two you begin hearing
from people who have been off your radar for a long time, these people are
flying monkeys. They may be a sibling who is invested in keeping your NM happy
and therefore a complicit assistant, they may be old friends or relatives with
whom you were once close but have grown away from, who are now dupes, but any
way you slice it, these people have come back into your life at this moment for
a reason, and the reason is not your
well-being.

When I was 14 I lived with my father for a
year while my mother was off gallivanting around the country with her latest
boyfriend. When she returned, she decided she wanted me back home with her…I
was not only her personal maid and housekeeper, I was a source of income in the
form of child support. She showed up at the door one night and asked me to take
a ride with her. To my surprise, we both got in the back seat. Expecting her
boyfriend to be at the wheel, I was delighted to see it was my old singing
teacher, whom I had adored.

If I knew then what I know now, I would
have gotten right out of that car and gone back into the house. But for the
next hour the singing teacher drove us around and the two of them played me
like a violin. They trotted out every cliché, every platitude, every
conceivable reason I should go back to live with my mother. They succeeded and
I made one of the worst decisions of my life: I went back to live with my her.
And once I was there, nothing changed. My NM and her flying monkey successfully
hoovered me, and I went back to live in the emotional Badlands
with NM.

This is what flying monkeys do: they
advance the cause of the N at your expense. They could be anybody, even your
old grandmother…after my mother put me through 8 years of hell by stealing my
children, lying to the whole family about me, and giving my children away to be
adopted…my grandmother begged me to “bury the hatchet” with my NM. She was old,
she told me, and she didn’t want to go to her grave with all the hostility
between her only daughter and her favourite grandchild. I succumbed and, like
everything else I do, I did it with a sincere desire to make peace. To me, that
meant trusting and being honest and aboveboard…both of which were used against
me yet again. But who would think my grandmother—and I always had been her
favourite and we all knew that—would act as a flying monkey for my mother and
set me up to be exploited and hurt by her yet again?

Whether you are NC, LC, or continue
“normal” communication with your N, beware of flying monkeys. They are the
people who will criticize you for not doing what your NM wants, will try to
sway you towards her agenda and away from your own. They will sabotage,
undermine and undercut you without compunction if it furthers the NM’s agenda.
They may do it out of blind loyalty to her, animosity towards you, or simply
well-meaning interference, but their reasons aren’t really important: what is
important is that they are more than willing to put your NM’s wishes ahead of
your own rights, feelings and autonomy. If you aren’t doing as your NM thinks
you should, then they side with her against you with no thought to your right
to self-determination or even your feelings.

Flying monkeys come in all shapes, sizes,
ages and from every possible walk of life but they all have this in common:
they unquestioningly further the agenda of the Ns in your life and they have no
respect for you whatsoever. No matter what they say, they are not on your side.

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Because the group is classified as a "secret" group, nobody can find it on a Facebook search, so your name and membership are completely confidential.

I personally monitor the group daily. No narcs, trolls, or manipulation/attacks are allowed, and anyone who engages in that kind of behaviour will have to leave the group. The objective is to create a safe place where you can talk to each other (and me) in privacy about the journey from victim to victor.

Unfortunately, spambots have figured away around the Captcha filter that my email app uses and the maker of the app has ignored my requests to make it more robust. I was only allowed 100 emails per month--I am writing this on the 10th of the month and spam has already taken more than 85 of my alloted emails: I have had to remove the email app because the volume of spam is taking all of the emails, leaving none for you. I am currently looking for another email app and when it is installed, I will revise this notice. Until then, however, there is no way to reach me via email.PLEASE DISREGARD THE INFORMATION BELOW UNTIL FURTHER NOTICE.

If you would like to join, send me an email using the form at the bottom of this page (do NOT use the comment section because that will publish your email address for the world to see) telling me a little about yourself and your experiences with narcissistic parents or parental figures and why you wish to join the group and I will get back to you.

Please double-check that you have included your CORRECT email address...I reply to every request I receive, so if you don't get a reply (and my reply hasn't been dumped into your spam or junkmail folder), that is your first clue that I don't have a correct email address to reach you. Please note, however, that I process requests only on Mondays, so if you don't hear back right away, don't panic...wait for next Monday!

Welcome to The Narcissist's Child, Facebook Edition!

Who Am I?

I am the adult daughter of a Malignant Narcissist mother (MNM). You may call me Violet.

Who follows this blog?

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Want to email me?

No more email--

Unfortunately, spambots have figured out a way to bypass the Captcha in the email app I have been using and the maker of the app has ignored my requests for them to make it more robust. The maker of the app only allows me 100 emails per month and it is only the 10th of the month and spam has already sucked up more than 75 of those emails. I have had to remove the email app as a result--nothing was getting through but spam.

Comments on the blog are not affected but comments lack the privacy of email so please don't include any contact information in your comments.

I am on the lookout for a new email app to replace this one but until I find one, there is no email contact on this blog due to people who don't care if their spam annoys or otherwise causes issues for others. It only takes a few selfish individuals to spoil it for everyone.

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Disclaimer and Terms of Use

The Narcissist's Child contains my experiences as the child of a malignant narcissist and my understanding of the disorder. It is an attempt to describe and demonstrate the dynamics of a relationship with a malignant narcissist, particularly a malignant narcissist mother, to people who have little or no experience with the disorder, those who have been left reeling by the unexpected repercussions of being involved with a narcissist, and for those who, having been involved with one, need the support that come from knowing that you are not alone.

I am not a mental health professional and nothing on The Narcissist's Child should be taken as an expert opinion. This are my experiences, perceptions, and opinions, nothing more. Nothing here is a substitute for the advice of or the diagnosis and treatment by, a mental health professional. Do not rely on information on this site as a substitute for the advice of a qualified mental health professional.

Some links on this site lead to information or resources maintained by third parties. The Narcissist's Child makes no representations as to accuracy, integrity or any other aspect of the linked resources: use at your own risk.

Names and identifying details have been changed to protect the privacy of the innocent and guilty alike (and to rob the narcissists of the glory of seeing their names or stories in print).

Use of this blog constitutes your understanding, acceptance of, and agreement to these terms.